BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 30. The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) is going to start the transit of crude oil produced at Kazakhstan's Kashagan field via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, the company told Trend.
"The first batch of Kashagan oil, loaded onto a tanker at the port of Aktau on January 25, amounts to approximately 6,000 tons. The cargo arrived at the Sangachal terminal on January 27 and will be transported via BTC to the port of Ceyhan. The first batch is being carried on the Taraz tanker, operated by Kazakhstan's KazMorTransFlot," the company stated.
The transit became possible following the signing of an agreement on January 15, 2025, between SOCAR's subsidiary, SOCAR Midstream Operations LLC, and KMG Trading, a subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s KazMunayGas (KMG), for the annual transit of 240,000 tons of Kashagan oil.
In March 2024, SOCAR and KMG signed an agreement on the phased increase of oil transit through Azerbaijan. The document envisions increasing supply volumes to 2.2 million tons per year.
Additionally, a November 2022 agreement between SOCAR and KMG provides for the transit of 1.5 million tons of oil from Kazakhstan's Tengiz field annually. In February 2024, another agreement was signed to gradually increase the transit volumes of Kazakh oil through Azerbaijani territory.
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